The Urban Epic

THayes and I rolled the Urban Epic last weekend, because snow precluded riding at our usual MTB winter training locations. The Urban Epic is a mixed route of road and as much dirt as can be found. It started off in West Seattle with some tasty French Toast and java to encourage us to get out into the cold winds buffeting our fair City. We worked our way through downtown with a stop at the Collonade to check out the progress. Some dirt rideable, but definitely still a work in progress. Next, up was a fun little singletrack descent off Capitol Hill down to Montlake. The Birk-G to St. Eds Park on Juanita Hill. The trails at St. Eds were actually quite good, not too muddy, considering the weather as of late. Spin back home up the beast of a climb out of Lake Forest Park. Ride Stats: 3:09 ride time, 37.74 miles, 2760 elevation gain.

I've got a new training tool for the mountain bike. The Garmin Edge 305 is a bike computer and GPS wrapped up in one little unit. It allows you to export your rides to topos, street maps, and Google earth. The picture below is an overlay of the Urban Epic route on an aerial photo. Too much fun!